One aspect of a successful hunting venture is the need to butcher the animal, such as a deer. The preferred approach is to suspend the animal following field dressing above the ground for further work by the hunter, i.e. skinning and processing the meat. There may also be a desire to suspend a livestock animal for skinning and processing of the meat.
The disclosed embodiment presents a new device for attaching to and securing field-dressed game or a livestock animal for processing. In particular the disclosed embodiment pertains to a device and method of securing a hoisting mechanism directly to the animal. The device of the disclosed embodiment consists of a metal apparatus to which is attached a rope or hook which is fastened to a rope, the rope or rope/hook combination having been first passed through the pelvic bone of the animal, from its dorsal side through to the ventral, and then hooked or looped to a bend in the device. When lifting force is applied to the rope, the device is pulled against the pelvic area in a manner that securely holds the animal in a suspended position for skinning and processing of the meat. The lower portion of the device consists of two legs with sharpened points, such that the heavier the animal the greater grip the device provides by using gravity to advantage. The center portion of the device consists of a bend to which the hoisting rope is connected, offset to the rear so as to have the effect of pulling the device into the fleshy portion of the pelvic bone as lifting force is applied to the rope and gravity forces the pelvic bone against the device. The upper portion of the device consists of an arm which rests against the upper part of the pelvic bone to provide stability.
The device permits the processing of all meat in the animal without any need to lower and re-suspend, because the hind legs are not involved in hanging or suspending the animal, and so they are left free to be processed. After all usable meat is removed from the animal all that essentially remains is the waste portion of the carcass. All meat has been removed in one operation without the need to reposition the animal.
There have been a number of patents issued which relate to the art of suspension of animals for the purpose of processing. The vast majority of patents which pertain to suspending game animals, particularly deer, deal in some way with an apparatus or support structure from which to hang the animal, such as a folding device which mounts in the receiver hitch of a motor vehicle (U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,821), or a device which may be taken into the field and is used to suspend an animal from a tree or other available point of contact (U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,964). Notably, such inventions do not lay claim to a new device or method of actually securing to the animal itself, but instead incorporate the use of what the hunting industry terms the “gambrel hook”. The gambrel hook has long been the state of the art in terms of providing the link between the animal and whatever device the user chooses to raise the animal, whether it be a block and tackle or one of the aforementioned lifting contraptions.
The gambrel hook is extremely widespread in use among hunters and consists of a length of steel or similar material, with a sharp point in either end. Each sharp point is inserted through the hide between the Achilles tendon and the femur of the animal, one end of the device for each leg. The length of the gambrel hook acts to spread the legs of the animal and a rope is attached to the center of the hook and thus the animal is raised by the ankles for processing.
While there are various types of meat hook inventions, these devices appear to be simple hooks and/or rely on piercing the meat itself, and thus depend upon the meat not tearing out during processing. The device of the preferred embodiment instead relies upon the strength of the pelvic bone as the point of suspension, a much stronger connection, and gravity which holds the device tight against the pelvic bone.